Just off the Tilak Nagar flyover in Kurla, Congress MP Priya Dutt's election truck stopped on a kachha road flooded with sewer water and hemmed in by shanties. As slum dwellers gathered around to gawk at party workers waving flags, bursting crackers and an ongoing commentary of Dutt's merits, the entire entourage was showered with rose petals.
Though roads, drainage, footpaths, water supply and waste management are not an MP's responsibility, most residents of the slums, through which the padyatra passed, had difficulty separating Dutt's performance from their abysmal living conditions. And the ongoing "natak", as one resident termed it, only exasperated their frustrations. However, one Reena in Navpada said Dutt had helped poor women by providing loans.
Dutt herself was visibly irritable; she occasionally asked party workers to desist from pelting her with rose petals and even stuck fingers in her ears when the accompanying drum rolls reached ear-splitting decibels.
"In this term, I'd like to concentrate on slum development and rehabilitation," said Dutt, who hopes to get re-elected from Mumbai's North-Central constituency, which includes Bandra, Kurla, Kalina, Vile Parle and Chandivali. Her opponents include BJP candidate Poonam Mahajan, who lost in the assembly election from Ghatkopar, AAP candidate and Bombay high court lawyer Phiroze Palkhivala, and SP candidate and restaurateur Farhan Azmi. Like Dutt, whose late father was elected to the Lok Sabha for five terms from Mumbai North-West, all the candidates are related to emin8ent personalities such as late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan, late jurist Nani Palkhivala and SP leader Abu Azmi.
"More than 60% of my constituency is slums," continued Dutt, who is considering soluti8o8ns such as low-rental housing and involving MHADA in all redevelopment projects so that legal cases against private developers don't stall the process. She says her greatest achievement in the past five years has been completion of infrastructure projects such as the Milan Flyover, the Santa Cruz-Chembur Link Road and the Sahar Elevated Access Road, which involved resettling slum dwellers in situ and sensitively shifting places of worship. "If it goes seamlessly and people are happy, then no one is against development," says Dutt. "But people say, 'We must be ensured our homes and livelihood back and we did that'."
A report card, prepared by election web site Mumbai Votes, confirmed Dutt's claims. It showed that she is the only Mumbai MP to have introduced bills in parliament and a break-up of her Member of Parliament Local Area Development expenditure showed that 69% has gone to health and family welfare. However, Dutt's 'band, baaja, ballot-style' election strategy ma8de little attempt to explain any of this to her constituents, falling back inste8ad on slogans like, "Priya Dutt aani hai, doosri Indira Gandhi hai."
Though roads, drainage, footpaths, water supply and waste management are not an MP's responsibility, most residents of the slums, through which the padyatra passed, had difficulty separating Dutt's performance from their abysmal living conditions. And the ongoing "natak", as one resident termed it, only exasperated their frustrations. However, one Reena in Navpada said Dutt had helped poor women by providing loans.
Dutt herself was visibly irritable; she occasionally asked party workers to desist from pelting her with rose petals and even stuck fingers in her ears when the accompanying drum rolls reached ear-splitting decibels.
"In this term, I'd like to concentrate on slum development and rehabilitation," said Dutt, who hopes to get re-elected from Mumbai's North-Central constituency, which includes Bandra, Kurla, Kalina, Vile Parle and Chandivali. Her opponents include BJP candidate Poonam Mahajan, who lost in the assembly election from Ghatkopar, AAP candidate and Bombay high court lawyer Phiroze Palkhivala, and SP candidate and restaurateur Farhan Azmi. Like Dutt, whose late father was elected to the Lok Sabha for five terms from Mumbai North-West, all the candidates are related to emin8ent personalities such as late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan, late jurist Nani Palkhivala and SP leader Abu Azmi.
"More than 60% of my constituency is slums," continued Dutt, who is considering soluti8o8ns such as low-rental housing and involving MHADA in all redevelopment projects so that legal cases against private developers don't stall the process. She says her greatest achievement in the past five years has been completion of infrastructure projects such as the Milan Flyover, the Santa Cruz-Chembur Link Road and the Sahar Elevated Access Road, which involved resettling slum dwellers in situ and sensitively shifting places of worship. "If it goes seamlessly and people are happy, then no one is against development," says Dutt. "But people say, 'We must be ensured our homes and livelihood back and we did that'."
A report card, prepared by election web site Mumbai Votes, confirmed Dutt's claims. It showed that she is the only Mumbai MP to have introduced bills in parliament and a break-up of her Member of Parliament Local Area Development expenditure showed that 69% has gone to health and family welfare. However, Dutt's 'band, baaja, ballot-style' election strategy ma8de little attempt to explain any of this to her constituents, falling back inste8ad on slogans like, "Priya Dutt aani hai, doosri Indira Gandhi hai."
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